Marilyn's Story
21, pregnant and scared

It has been 1 year and 2 months since I had my abortion. I was 21 at the time. I have been with my boyfriend for 5 years and this was the first time that I got pregnant. In the 5 years that I have been with him we never have used protection. I thought that one of us was sterile.

My mom was the one that kept telling me I know that you are pregnant, and I was like, yea right! She would ask me when did you get your period? And that is when I got to thinking, I haven't had a period, but that really wasn't a big deal cause I have always had irregular periods. So I wasn't worried about it. Well one morning my mom said why don't we pick up a pregnancy test just to see. The whole time before this she kept telling me that she knew I was pregnant. Well we bought the test and I went into the restroom and did the test thinking that this was silly and a waste of time and money. I sat there looking at the test as one pink line appeared and then another pink line appeared! I couldn't believe it! I was happy and scared at the same time.

I came out of the restroom and told my mom. All she said was I will stand by you no matter what you want to do. I couldn't believe it. I didn't think this would happen to me. I never thought I would get pregnant ever!!! I thought I was sterile. I called my boyfriend and told him the news. All he could say was Oh @#$%!! What do you want to do he asked? I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to do.

He has always told me that he wouldn't want a baby right now and I felt the same. It was always understood that I would have an abortion, but it is totally different when you are in that position. I was really happy about being pregnant and the whole idea of it. My sister had just had a baby girl a month before I found out I was pregnant. It really hurt my family because she was only 18. She left our house and moved in with her boyfriend. Our family is very old fashioned you know what I mean right no sex till marriage, only have sex at night with the lights out, women don't drink or curse. That was how my dad thought anyway. My mom was a little more open minded she has known that I have been sexually active since I was 15. She put me on the pill.

Anyway, I called my sister and told her the news and she was happy for me. She is pro-choice and told me that she would support me no matter what I decided. She started telling me how fun it would be for our baby's to grow up together and I started thinking about it and how much I would enjoy that. I started reading all of my sisters baby books on the different stages you body goes through, and what size the baby is week by week. I started to tell my friends at work that I was pregnant which was a big mistake. It's just that I was happy and confused. I didn't know what to do.

I knew that I wasn't ready for this baby. Yes I have a good job but I still wanted to go to school. I was still living with my parents, I have no car. My boyfriend was going to be moving out of town to get a better paying job. It was getting harder and harder for me to decide what to do, I had started getting morning sickness and weird cravings. I had this thing with chocolate chip cookies! I couldn't get enough of them! I started to enjoy being pregnant. My mom was telling me that if I was going to have an abortion that it was better to do it as soon as possible not to wait because then I wouldn't be able to go through with it. So I decided to go ahead and do it.

I called abortion clinics for prices and found one that was reasonable. I had an appointment for that following Saturday morning at 7:30 in the morning. My boyfriend had left town a week before it happened. That last week of my pregnancy was really hard for me cause like I said going through the motions, the sickness, and the cravings. And in a few days it would all be over. I woke up around 6:30 on Saturday and got dressed. They told me that I was going to need to have someone be there with me to drive me home. My mom had already told me that she would be there with me. The only thing was that the abortion cost $262.00 and all we had was half of it. I asked my boyfriend's brother if he could help which he did and I am forever thankful! My boyfriend doesn't know that his brother helped me out he would kill me! He thinks my mom paid for it, but there was nothing I could do, we didn't have the money. he had just started working and I didn't want to put this off anymore. In a later pregnancy, you have to have another procedure and I didn't want to do that.

Anyway we arrived at the clinic the nurse told me that I would be there for 4 hours. I had to fill out some paper work and they had to draw some blood. There was about 30 girls there, all young all scared just like me. I was there for about 30 minutes when it finally started to hit me. I got very emotional and I wanted to talk to my boyfriend. I wanted him there with me. I had checked our phone messages and he had called around 7:00 that morning crying and upset. I called him and he was crying and told me that he loved me and that he was so sorry that he couldn't be there with me and he hopes that everything goes ok. I was so happy to talk to him, it helped me a lot I was so glad that my mom was there with me. I felt safe with her being there with me. I don't think I could have gone through it alone.

Well a counselor called a group of us in and showed us a video and talked to us about the shot that is given to us and that we will be given (laughing gas ) to dull the pain. He told us that we will be experiencing cramping during the procedure and will feel the cramping after it is done for a couple of days. He gave us a tranquilizer to relax our muscles. I felt the tranquilizer right away. It makes you very dizzy, light headed but yet relaxed.

The nurse called me in and she did a sonogram the screen was facing the wall so didn't see anything. I was worried that I was going to hear a heartbeat. I know that I would not have been able to handle that, but I didn't hear anything. The nurse told me I was 7 weeks. She then took me into another room and asked me to take my pants and underwear off and to cover myself with this paper like blanket. She told me to sit on this table and put my legs up. She was very nice she calmed me down a lot I was terrified at this moment. My legs were shaking. She laid me back and she told me to look at the ceiling, they had a poster of penguins dancing. She told me to focus on that and I would be fine. She gave me the mask to breathe in and I started to feel light headed right away. The doctor came in and told me to relax. He gave me a shot and then I heard this suction, I started to feel uncomfortable, it started to hurt a little. The whole time the nurse is telling me what he is doing. I started to get cramps but nothing compared to my menstrual cramps. And that was it! I couldn't believe it the whole procedure took about 3 minutes at the most.

I sat up and felt a little uneasy but not that bad. I went into the recovery room and had some punch. I was still cramping pretty bad but one of the nurses gave me some motrin. The nurse called my name, she wanted to check the pad that the nurse had put on me after the procedure. I wasn't bleeding that much so she told me that I could go. She gave me some antibiotics and some painkillers for the cramps. And that was it.

I am a believer and supporter in abortion. And I am glad that I have the freedom to make a choice and not have it made for me. I know this was a very long entry but thank you for your time.

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